


All The Lonely People

by AmberDiceless



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Songfic, Though there's not much of the song in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 22:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberDiceless/pseuds/AmberDiceless
Summary: No man-shaped being is an island.





	All The Lonely People

_Nobody came._

It wasn’t the first time Aziraphale had found himself the sole attendee at some poor soul’s neglected funeral, and it undoubtedly wouldn’t be the last.

He knew he shouldn’t keep doing this to himself. Of course, he knew that. Crowley had told him often enough (generally when drunk) that there was no point in dwelling on it: humans were graced with only so many days to walk this earth, and when their time ran out, well...that was that.

Like so many butterflies, they were--bright and ephemeral, a joy to behold for however long they lasted. As a species, they were worth any amount of trouble to preserve. It was no good getting _attached_ to any particular one, though. Aziraphale had made that mistake several times in the early days, and on rare occasion he still forgot himself, dazzled by the glow of some fleeting, brilliant spirit until it inevitably fizzled out.

As the years went by, though, he fought the impulse more and more resolutely. That way lay only grief, and beyond that, despair. Maybe madness, given enough time.

Perhaps that, too, was inevitable, however long an earthbound immortal might try to resist it. He’d seen various eldritch beings succumb in his day, and humans carried on repeating their haunting stories long after they’d stopped _believing_ them. Aziraphale couldn’t begrudge them that morbid fascination. Even threescore and ten (or fewer) years of inexorable change and loss must be enough to impart the general idea, he supposed.

But Father MacKenzie was a good man, and he had been at least vaguely fond of the lady, if noone else had. Other than Aziraphale, who stopped by the church now and again to see how the old boy was getting along, she may have been the only friend or family he had. It couldn’t be easy for him to say goodbye like this, and he still had a weary task ahead of him, filling in her grave.

He deserved better, the angel thought. So had Eleanor, come to that. They _all_ did.

Six thousand years, marked as much by long absences as companionship, had taught him a thing or two about loneliness. He fancied that if there was such a thing as Hell on Earth, that must surely be one of its names.

The short service complete, Father MacKenzie offered him a bleak smile in passing, not stopping for conversation. There was little to say; Aziraphale really hadn’t known the lady very well. He wondered sadly if his presence here had been any help at all, or if it only served to punctuate the emptiness of the old churchyard.

As he passed through the gates, the graying priest nodded absently to a tall figure who stood waiting patiently beside them. Aziraphale noted the respectful nod he got in return, and the hands clasped appropriately together rather than casually hooked in pockets, and he smiled, though he knew the black garb had nothing to do with the funeral.

“You didn’t have to wait. I could have caught the bus,” he murmured as he came up.

“It’s no trouble.” Crowley took his hand and drew it through the crook of his arm, smiling at him soberly. “She have a nice send-off?”

“Nice enough, I suppose. It was a lovely sermon,” Aziraphale said a bit forlornly. “Pity there was no one to hear.”

"You heard.” Never eager to linger near consecrated ground, Crowley tugged him gently away from the rusted iron gates, toward where the Bentley was parked. “C’mon, angel. Let me take you to lunch.”

Aziraphale went along willingly enough, clinging a little, and grateful all over again for whatever design or whim of the Almighty had put the two of them into each others’ path all those long centuries ago.

Behind them, unnoticed, the grave quietly sealed itself up, and a thorny blanket of wildflowers crept across the fresh earth and up the weathered tombstone that bore the name, _Rigby._

**Author's Note:**

> If the timeline's a little off, well, this is the Good Omens universe, where the Earth is 6000 years old, the Bastille was still in use during the Reign of Terror, dark glasses existed 1100 years early on the wrong continent, and Eleanor Rigby lived a bit longer than she did in our world...


End file.
